China Has Finally Connected Its Controversial Three Gorges Dam To The Power Grid

Yesterday China connected its enormous Three Gorges Dam to the power grid, Reuters reports — and after 18 years the controversial project is finally complete.

The completion of the 32nd 700-megawatt unit means that the site now has a total capacity up to 22.5 gigawatts — 11% of China's total hydroelectric power.

Now most Chinese citizens must be hoping that the hydroelectric project is worth the huge cost: 1.4 million people had to be relocated from towns, cities, and villages to make way for the enormous structure, which would supplement a hungry China's growing energy needs.

The project also increased the amount of cargo transported across the river to 50 million tons, triple the maximum annual amount prior to the dam's construction.

But the system has had some major problems from the very get go.

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About 1.4 million people were displaced when construction began, and 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,350 villages were submerged when the reservoir reached its full capacity of 40 billion cubic meters (1,412.6 billion cubic feet).

The dam may have exacerbated China's 2011 drought.

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While there is no concrete evidence, critics say the dam altered regional water tables, which led to residents downstream of Three Gorges losing access to drinking water in the drought from January-April 2011, according to The New York Times. China's Xinhua news agency put the number of those affected at 10 million. It was widely considered the worst drought in 50 years.

The drought negated most of the dam's plus points: ships were stranded and central and eastern China faced a power shortage.

Environmentalists say the reservoir is accumulating silt and waste from cities and industries.

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Over 265 billion gallons of raw sewage are dumped into the Yangtze annually, which now collects in the reservoir instead of being flushed downstream and out into the ocean. However, the government insists the new sewage treatment plants have this under control, according to NPR.

The government finally acknowledged the problems in 2011, five years after Three Gorges was built.

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The Chinese State Council said it knew about some of the problems even before construction began 17 years ago, while some other issues have arisen since because of "new demands as the social and economical situation developed".

But despite this late admission, the plan was always contentious. A third of Chinese MPs voted against the plan or abstained.

But China still wants to build more dams.

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There are plans to build a series of dams on a section of the upper Yangtze which, combined, will have a capacity more than twice that of the Three Gorges Dam. But not only is this region seismically active, the project could deprive Three Gorges of water, according to the AP.

Other plans include possibly building dams along the Nu River and the upper Mekong, which would be fatal to the area's fragile ecosystems and endangered species, Foreign Policy reports.